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Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,

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Speaker 1: the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the

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Speaker 1: new world of work, where location and hours are more

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Speaker 1: flexible than in the past. Today's tip is about how

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Speaker 1: to negotiate the ability to keep working from home post pandemic.

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Speaker 1: Various surveys have found that most people would like to

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Speaker 1: keep working from home at least occasionally, though it will

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Speaker 1: require a little strategy if your boss is resistant. Before

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen hit last spring, I got a lot of

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Speaker 1: questions about how to negotiate a work from home agreement

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Speaker 1: for a day or two a week. This has long

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Speaker 1: been a popular workplace perk, and yet has often been

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Speaker 1: a hard ask. Many managers assumed people weren't working when

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Speaker 1: they worked from home, so the perk would be reserved

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Speaker 1: for people who'd been with the organization for several years,

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Speaker 1: and even then it could only happen on Fridays. Best

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Speaker 1: to minimize the opportunity cost right Then, in March, we

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Speaker 1: learned that whole organizations could go virtual overnight. Working from

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Speaker 1: home became a necessity, not a perk. That is still

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Speaker 1: the case in many places, but some regions are opening

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Speaker 1: back up, and as they do, we're seeing a mix

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Speaker 1: on workspaces. Some companies, such as Google are encouraging people

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Speaker 1: to work from home until well into the next year,

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Speaker 1: but some other folks have written to me to say

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Speaker 1: that their managers insist that this was really just temporary

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Speaker 1: and everyone needs to be back in the office the

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Speaker 1: second it is possible. If you are in the latter camp,

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Speaker 1: you have a few options. One is to survey your

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Speaker 1: fellow workers and see how people feel about it. If

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Speaker 1: a manager finds that of her team members feel more

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Speaker 1: productive working at home and want to keep doing so, well,

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Speaker 1: that is a bit of an eye opener. You might

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Speaker 1: also suggest a hybrid approach. One reason people resist letting

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Speaker 1: employees work from home is that they think it becomes

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Speaker 1: an either or thing, all remote or all in person.

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Speaker 1: And there are definitely some benefits to seeing each other

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Speaker 1: in person, but most organizations need not be a hundred

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Speaker 1: percent remote. Post pandemic, you could suggest that you try

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Speaker 1: a hybrid of three days in the office and to

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Speaker 1: at home, or two weeks in the office and to

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Speaker 1: at home each month and see how it goes. Evaluate

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Speaker 1: after a few months and compare what's gotten done. You

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Speaker 1: might also try to understand your manager's perspective. Has there

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Speaker 1: been anything really unsettling her over the past few months

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Speaker 1: with people working from home? Could that issue be addressed?

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Speaker 1: If most people do want to get back to the office,

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Speaker 1: but you personally don't, then you can propose a trial

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Speaker 1: run for just yourself, work a hybrid schedule for a

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Speaker 1: few months and show that you can still be plugged

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Speaker 1: into your teams and still get a lot done. If

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Speaker 1: you're smart about this, you will turn in really huge

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Speaker 1: winds on your work from home days. You know that,

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Speaker 1: And if there's still resistance, well, remember that all employment

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Speaker 1: situations are an ongoing negotiation. One of the best ways

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Speaker 1: to be able to work how you want to work

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Speaker 1: is to become indispensable. If you are bringing in big clients,

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Speaker 1: or have specialized knowledge, or are known for being one

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Speaker 1: of the best in the world at your field, you

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Speaker 1: will have a lot more leverage to say, guess what,

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Speaker 1: I want to work from home. If you don't like that,

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Speaker 1: I'll find someone else who will be fine with it. Now,

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Speaker 1: maybe you'd want to put that in some nicer words,

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Speaker 1: but one of the upsides coming out of this pandemic

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Speaker 1: is that a lot more organizations will be amenable to

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Speaker 1: people working from home at least a few days per week.

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Speaker 1: This is really no longer an idle threat. A good

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Speaker 1: manager probably already knows that, but sometimes people are just

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Speaker 1: a little slower coming around in the meantime. This is Laura,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's the succeeding in the New

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Speaker 1: Corner Office. The New Corner Office is a production of

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